Anxiety
Does Social Anxiety Make Us Over-Interpret What Others Think?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
People with social anxiety only over-interpret others' thoughts and intentions during stressful, self-referential social interactions, rather than as a general, constant habit.
Key findings
Socially anxious participants over-interpreted the interviewer's thoughts during the live interview, but did not show this bias when evaluating movie characters. Surprisingly, this tendency to over-interpret others during direct interaction was not influenced by the participants' self-esteem or negative self-schemas.
Methodology
Researchers recruited 113 college students, categorizing them into high or low social anxiety groups based on screening tests. Participants completed a movie-watching task and a live, personal interview to measure how much they over-attributed thoughts to others. The researchers also measured the participants' self-esteem to see if negative self-views explained over-interpreting behavior.
Limitations
This study cannot prove that social anxiety directly causes context-dependent over-interpretation, as the design is correlational. Additionally, the sample consisted of 85.8% female university students, meaning these patterns might not apply to men or the broader public. Finally, because the study relied on self-reports for self-image, it cannot rule out whether unconscious or implicit self-esteem plays a role.
How this study connects
Role on claims
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Social cognitive and mentalizing difficulties manifest differently across psychiatric profiles, with schizophrenia and high schizotypy generally leading to undermentalizing or severe overall deficits, whereas borderline personality disorder and social anxiety lead to 'hypermentalizing' patterns.
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